GTX580 Sli manufacturers... Gigabyte or Palit or Galaxy?

roadwarrior7

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Hi, I'm gonna be changing my graphics card to gtx580 sli very soon...
And two of gtx580 costs quite alot, so I wanted to ask you guys which manufacturer i should choose.

I've had very bad experiance with XFX recently, so... yea getting bit paranoid.haha -Oh and also i live in Australia.
I would much prefer ASUS over... Gigabyte/Palit/Galaxy, but only gtx580s in stock are these three manufacturer's cards.

I've used Gigabyte cards before, but i have never used palit or galaxy's so i want to ask you guys, which one i should get >.<
All three cards have custom cooler.

Oh btw, does gtx580 come with Sli bridge? Don't think it came with my mobo :S
Thank you!
 
Solution
Make sure your motherboard supports SLI. Not having a SLI bridge in the motherboard accessories is a red flag. Apparently, AMD cards supply Crossfire bridges, but Nvidia cards do not supply SLI bridges, those will come from the motherboard box. (It makes sense because only certain SLI-certified motherboards will support SLI, but pretty much all motherboards will do Crossfire.)

The Palit has a nice cooler, but if the Gigabyte has the Windforce cooler, that is one of the best. Then again, if the Galaxy comes with the Arctic Cooling Accelero cooler, then they all would make good choices. The only problem is that all the aftermarket coolers vent exhaust heat inside the case, vs. the reference cooler, which vents heat outside the case...

Griffolion

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Gigabyte will be your best bet there, they won't be the cheapest though (compared to Palit at least). And yes, high end units like this SHOULD come with a bridge.

If you're familiar with Gigabyte as you say you are, i think that will be your safest choice.
 

roadwarrior7

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I wouldn't say im that familiar... >.< I bought gigabyte 5850 and used it for like 2 months, and then sold it...haha
Palit is around 590AUD and Gigabyte is around 640Aud, so gigabyte would cost me around 100AUD extra, tho if it is a better card, i wouldn't mind spending 100bux extra.

Hm... Tho i dunno if i should wait till 3Gb version of gtx580 comes into australia... I'm running on 5760x1080 res, and 3gb version would perform much better than 1.5gb.... i think... hm...
 

roadwarrior7

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I've seen some reviews, and... 6970's performance didn't look that shiny...
Tho, two gtx580's price is pretty much equal to three 6970's price... Which is very appealing...

GAWDD so hard to decide...lol
 

Griffolion

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Personally, i have a Palit GTX 460 and it works really well, however their return point should you need to RMA one is Hong Kong, so the time to getting a new one will be long.

So you could just go with two Palit 580's and be done with it.
 
Make sure your motherboard supports SLI. Not having a SLI bridge in the motherboard accessories is a red flag. Apparently, AMD cards supply Crossfire bridges, but Nvidia cards do not supply SLI bridges, those will come from the motherboard box. (It makes sense because only certain SLI-certified motherboards will support SLI, but pretty much all motherboards will do Crossfire.)

The Palit has a nice cooler, but if the Gigabyte has the Windforce cooler, that is one of the best. Then again, if the Galaxy comes with the Arctic Cooling Accelero cooler, then they all would make good choices. The only problem is that all the aftermarket coolers vent exhaust heat inside the case, vs. the reference cooler, which vents heat outside the case.

Don't wait for the 3GB version of the GTX580. Apparently, the gain in FPS is not really big. Nice to have if available, but nothing worth putting off your plans for.
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1109/pg1/asus-geforce-gtx-580-directcu-ii-vs-gainward-geforce-gtx-580-phantom-3-graphics-card-review-introduction.html
 
Solution

roadwarrior7

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Thanx for the reply Matto!
Actually just before i read your reply, i realized my mobo didn't come with SLi bridge. I'm using MSI P55a-Fuzion...
So yea, I just placed order for two Sapphire 6970! I'll save rest of the money for AM3+mobo & bulldozer comming in Q2 =D
 

roadwarrior7

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Thats what I thought, but it didn't come with SLi bridge.... =(
So....... yea
Nontheless I decided to get 6970 :D

Thanx for the reply tho! =]
 
It also supports mix and match of AMD and Nvidia cards for dual GPU setups with no need for a bridge connector:
"The retail-boxed P55A Fuzion contains twice as many cables as found in this press sample, but no SLI or CrossFire bridges. MSI believes that its users will always prefer HydraLogix multi-GPU control (which doesn't require bridges) over proprietary SLI and CrossFire, but we really don’t think MSI should be adding any restrictions to a board that otherwise supports all three technologies."

Hmmm, with that, I would send back one of those 6970's and get a GTX580 for a 6970/580 hydralogix setup... with PhysX/3D Vision on one hand and Eyefinity on the other. The best of both worlds.
 

roadwarrior7

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That does sound like a brilliant plan, but not sure if there will be AM3+ mobo with Lucid Hydra chipset.
So... Just to be safe, I think i'll just use 6970 for now. If 6970cf doesn't satisfy me, i'll sell it off second hand, and get two gtx580. Well i think eventually i'll get GTX580s anyway, but I always liked AMD over Nvidia(just personal flavour), so i want to try the newest AMD card out anyay >.>
Thanx alot for your input Matto =]